Two former real estate developers have found a way to use satellite global positioning system (GPS) technology to take house hunting one step further. The system, Smarter Agent, uses the Internet and the location technology of a cell phone or PDA to give buyers real-time information about a house simply by driving in front of it. The tool will make house shopping easier and more convenient, the company says.
At about the end of the tech boom, brothers Brad and Eric Blumberg asked themselves what was next. "We thought the Internet was done," says Brad, CEO of the Philadelphia-based company Smarter Agent Technology. "But we decided that mobile technology will be the future."
What they came up with does not get any easier than this. Buyers register for free on the company's Web site (www.smarteragent.com) and use Web access or a mobile phone equipped with GPS technology for access to professional-grade search tools. They drive up to a house, press a button on the electronic device, and all the publicly available data on the house will be downloaded instantly.
The company is looking at a program for builders to list information on all of their subdivisions. The service will be free to home buyers, but builders will pay a yet-to-be-determined fee for the listings.
"Builders will get information about who is looking at their houses, and it will drive more traffic to their subdivisions," Brad says.
